Indulging in the crunchiest bites of the AMEC framework

The need for PR professionals to be able to measure the value on the work done for their clients was recognized early on, leading to the development of the Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE).

Unfortunately, AVES came at a high cost. The ease of use of AVE was compensated by extremely erroneous results, despite the fact that it made the financial side of the results easier to measure and provide.

The need for a new model, however, was not solely motivated by the AVES’s lack of precision. The need arose as:

1. We now live in an integrated media world, where online media frequently overlaps with print media and vice versa. Additionally, with the rise of influencer media, quantifying results has become more difficult.
2. Regional media outlets have multiplied.  As we are constantly bombarded with them, our attention span has drastically decreased.
3. As a result of growing privacy and data concerns, some social media platforms will prove unreliable when it comes to measuring likes, reach, and comments; indicating a growing need to shift our focus from outputs to impacts and outcomes.

AMEC Framework – the need of the hour.

The Integrated Evaluation Framework (AMEC Framework ), developed in 2017, walks users through a clear measurement path by guiding them through planning, goal-setting, strategy implementation, outcome measurement, and evaluation. AMEC framework provides a standardized method, is suitable for use by organizations of all sizes, and can be tailored to specific situations, clients, and goals.

The four facets of the strategy are preparation, implementation, measurements and insights, and effect.

Measuring progress will be our sole focus for this blog, as it is the most tricky and time-consuming component of the framework. Measuring progress can be broken down into Outputs, Outtakes and Outcomes.

Outputs:

Measuring outputs reveals both qualitative and quantitative information put out by the agency. Consider the reach of your press releases, the number of tweets, or the number of potential readers who saw your article as a result of media campaign.

Outtakes

Outtakes refers to the target audience’s response and reactions to the activity, assessing their level of focus and comprehension of the material, as well as their level of interaction with it.

Outcomes

The most crunchiest part of this framework is the outcomes, which include information and analysis from the client and the agency and track modifications in behavior or attitudes.
Such as whether the target audience has increased knowledge or awareness, whether their trust has grown, or whether their behavior has changed as a result of the campaign.

Putting it into effect- Let’s look at an example to help understand the concept.

Suppose you are in charge of the Dubai Fitness Challenge Campaign, and your primary goals for this campaign are to increase participation and improve the nation’s fitness standards.

1. The press release and key messages of the campaign reached to 80% of people aged 18 to 40, received a four-and-a-half-minute airing on national channels, and were featured in more than 70 publications.

This would be your output because it indicates what was done to spread the message and raise awareness.

2. Moving on, you witnessed an increase in organic traffic and your statics showed that eight thousand readers interacted with the content in some form (could be through views, likes, comments, shares).

This is the outtake for your campaign because it shows your target audiences response and interaction with the content and messaging.

3. A motivated attitude toward fitness, an increase in gym memberships, the number of people who participated in the campaign, and a change in eating habits would all be regarded as part of the campaign’s effectiveness as these are a clear indication of how the behavior changes that was triggered as a result of the campaign.

Our ability to adapt and evolve is what determines our survival in a world that is constantly changing, especially with the introduction of new mediums such as the metaverse.

The evolving nature of how we reach our target audience calls for a framework that meets the demands and provides the best possible results. These results not only determine the value of PR, but go one step ahead and add value to each campaign by determining what worked and what did not work so well.

It is now up to us to decide whether we want to be the pioneers or the laggards in this fast-paced world.